Special Report: NPC, CPPCC Annual Sessions 2008　

China will stipulate or update more than 7,700 national standards for the safety of food, drugs and other consumer goods this year, as part of the efforts to ensure product quality and safety, Premier Wen Jiabao said in Beijing Wednesday.

"It is imperative that the people feel confident about the safety of food and other consumer goods and that our exports have a good reputation," said Wen while delivering a report on the work of his cabinet at the opening meeting of the annual full session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.

While stressing that the formulation and updating is meant to put in place a sound system of standards for product safety, the premier promised that all requirements and testing methods for the safety and quality of food and other consumer goods will "comply with international standards."

"China's exports will meet both international standards and the laws and regulations on technical standards of the importing countries," he told nearly 3,000 national legislators and more than 2,000 political advisors at the Great Hall of the People in downtown Beijing.

Chinese industries have come under the spotlight of domestic and foreign consumers with concerns about substandard products or tainted food over recent years, which sometimes led to international disputes in addition to poisoning or even deaths of people.

Food-related incidents, in particular, included vegetables with pesticide residue, fish contaminated with suspected carcinogens and eggs tainted with the industrial dye Sudan Red.

"China should stipulate stricter criteria for market access and ban the illegal operation of small workshops," said Zhu Yicai, an NPC deputy and chairman of the board of the Yurun Group, a well-known sausage producer in east China's Jiangsu Province.

While another NPC deputy Zong Qinghou appealed for speeding up the legislation on food safety.

"China should improve the legal system in this respect and crack down on lawbreakers more severely," said Zong, board chairman and general manager of beverage giant Hangzhou-based Wahaha Group.

In Wednesday's report, the Chinese premier responded to the calls of the legislators and the public by pledging to "increase punishment on enterprises that violate laws and regulations pertaining to product quality and safety, and improve the oversight and control systems" in this regard.

"We will raise the requirements for production permits and tighten market access for products related to people's health and safety...and strictly control the quality of exports and imports," he said.

To address food safety issues, the Chinese government launched a four-month nationwide campaign in late August last year to crackdown on unlicensed food shops and suppliers and on sales of food products without quality and inspection certificates.

As a result, more than 1,480 people were arrested, involving 1,187 criminal investigations nationwide, the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in mid-January.

Thirteen major cases, such as fake drug albumin from human plasma and shoddy vaccine of blue ear disease, were solved while 64 people were arrested.

During the campaign, the country shut down more than 300 drug manufacturers, and destroyed or returned 168 batches of illegally imported or substandard pork, fruit and materials.

The country also set up quality files covering 33,000 consumer goods producers and put more than 10,000 enterprises into the country's quality-monitoring network, the administration said.